Imagine Me

The seconds build. Minutes pass.

Nothing.

The rapid beating of my heart slows into a sick stutter of dread. I’ve lost perspective—my sense of time is warped in the dark—but I swear it feels like we’ve been here for too long.

“Something is wrong,” Warner says.

I hear a sharp intake of breath. Haider.

Warner says softly, “We miscalculated.”

“No,” Castle cries.

That’s when I hear the screams.

We run without hesitation, all four of us, hurtling ourselves toward the sounds. We tear through branches, sprain ankles on overgrown roots, propel ourselves into the darkness with the force of pure, undiluted panic. Rage.

Sobs rend the sky. Violent cries echo into the distance. Inarticulate voices, guttural moans, goose bumps rising along my flesh. We are sprinting toward death.

I know we’re close when I see the light.

Nouria.

She’s cast an ethereal glow above the scene, bringing the remains of a battlefield into sharp focus.

We slow down.

Time seems to expand, fracturing apart as I bear witness to a massacre. Anderson and his men made a detour. We hoped they’d come straight for Warner, straight for Juliette. We hoped. We tried. We took a gamble.

We bet wrong.

And we know The Reestablishment well enough to understand that they were punishing these innocent people for harboring us. Slaughtering entire families for providing us aid and relief. Nausea hits me with the force of a blade, stunning me, knocking me sideways. I slump against a tree. I can feel my mind disconnecting, threatening unconsciousness, and somehow I force myself not to pass out from horror. Terror. Heartbreak.

I keep my eyes open.

Sam and Nouria are on their knees, holding broken, bleeding bodies close to their chests, their tortured cries piercing the strange half night. Castle stands beside me, his body slack. I hear his half-choked sob.

We knew it was possible—Haider said they might do this—but somehow I still can’t believe my eyes. I desperately want this to be a nightmare. I would cut off my right arm for a nightmare. But reality persists.

The Sanctuary is little more than a graveyard.

Unarmed men and women mowed down. From where I’m standing I count six children, dead. Eyes open, mouths agape, fresh blood still dripping down limp bodies. Ian is on his knees, vomiting. Winston stumbles backward, hits a tree. His glasses slide down his face and he only remembers to catch them at the last moment. Only the supreme kids still seem to have their heads on straight, and there’s something about that realization that strikes fear into my heart. Nazeera, Haider, Warner, Stephan. They walk calmly through the wreckage, faces unchanged and solemn. I don’t know what they’ve seen—what they’ve been a part of—that makes them able to stand here, still relatively cool in the face of so much human devastation, and I don’t think I want to know.

I offer Castle my hand and he takes it, steadies himself. We exchange a single glance before diving into the fray.

Anderson is easy to spot, standing tall in the midst of hell, but hard to reach. His Supreme Guard swarms us, weapons drawn. Still, we move closer. No matter what comes next, we fight to the death. That was always the plan, from the first. And it’s what we’ll do now.

Round two.

The still-living fighters on the field straighten at our approach, at the scene forming, and steal glances at one another. We’re surrounded by firepower, that’s true, but nearly everyone here has a supernatural gift. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to put up a fight. A crowd gathers slowly around us—half Sanctuary, half Point—hale bodies breaking away from the wreckage to form a new battalion. I feel the fresh hope moving through the air. The tantalizing maybe. Carefully, I pull free a gun from my side holster.

And just as I’m about to make a move—

“Don’t.”

Anderson’s voice is loud. Clear. He breaks through his wall of soldiers, stalking toward us casually, looking as polished as always. I don’t understand, at first, why so many people gasp at his approach. I don’t see it. I don’t notice the body he’s dragging with him, and when I finally notice the body, I don’t recognize it. Not right away.

It’s not until Anderson jerks the small figure upright, nudging his head back with a gun, that I feel the blood exit my heart. Anderson presses the gun to James’s throat, and my knees nearly give out.

“This is very simple,” Anderson says. “You will hand over the girl, and in return, I won’t execute the boy.”

We’re all frozen.

“I should clarify, however, that this is not an exchange. I’m not offering to return him to you. I’m only offering not to murder him here, on the spot. But if you hand over the girl now, without a fight, I will consider letting most of you disappear into the shadows.”

“Most of us?” I say.

Anderson’s eyes glance off my face and the faces of several others. “Yes, most of you,” he says, his gaze lingering on Haider. “Your father is very disappointed in you, young man.”

A single gunshot explodes without warning, ripping open a hole in Anderson’s throat. He grabs at his neck and falls, with a choked cry, on one knee, looking around for his assailant.

Nazeera.

She materializes in front of him just in time to jump up, into the sky. The supreme soldiers start shooting upward, releasing round after round with impunity, and though I’m terrified for Nazeera, I realize she took that risk for me. For James.

We’ll do our best, she’d said. I didn’t realize her best included risking her life for that kid. For me. God, I fucking love her.

I go invisible.

Anderson is struggling to stanch the flow of blood at his throat while keeping his grip on James, who appears to be unconscious.

Two guards remain at his side.

I fire two shots.

They both go down, crying out and clutching limbs, and Anderson nearly roars. He starts clawing at the air in front of him, then fumbles for his gun with one red hand, blood still seeping from his lips. I take that opportunity to punch him in the face.

He rears back, more surprised than injured, but Brendan moves in quickly, clapping his hands together to create a twisting, crackling bolt of electricity he wraps around Anderson’s legs, temporarily paralyzing him.

Anderson drops James.

I catch him before he hits the floor, and bolt toward Lily, who’s waiting just outside of Nouria’s ring of light. I unload his unconscious body into her arms and Brendan builds an electric shield around their bodies. A beat later, they’re gone.

Relief floods through me.

Too quickly. It unsteadies me. My invisibility falters for less than a second, and in less than a second I’m attacked from behind.

I hit the ground, hard, air leaving my lungs. I struggle to flip over, to stand up, but a supreme soldier is already pointing a rifle at my face. He shoots.

Castle comes out of nowhere, knocking the soldier off his feet, stopping the bullets with a single gesture. He redirects the ammunition meant for my body, and I don’t even realize what’s happened until I see the dude drop to his knees. He’s a human sieve, bleeding out the last of his life right in front of me, and it all feels suddenly surreal.

I drag myself up, my head pounding in my throat. Castle is already moving, ripping a tree from its roots as he goes. Stephan is using his superstrength to pummel as many soldiers as he can, but they won’t stop shooting, and he’s moving slowly, blood staining nearly every inch of his clothing. I watch him sway. I run toward him, try to shout a warning, but my voice gets lost in the din, and my legs won’t move fast enough. Another soldier charges at him, unloading rounds, and this time, I scream.